Article from the Del Rio News Herald December 2012

Article from the Del Rio News Herald October 2012

Article from the Del Rio News Herald September 2012

Article from the Del Rio News Herald February 2011

QUILTERS HAVE 5TH ANNUAL RETREAT IN COMSTOCK BY SARA M. CASTLEA buzz of activity vibrated throughout the Comstock
Community Center where quilters met for their 5th annual retreat,
January 27 – January 30, 2011. Thirteen area and visitor quilters, armed with
sewing machines, gadgets, patterns, unfinished projects, and enthusiasm, worked
in frenzy for four days that began in the wee hours and ended well past
midnight. Thanks to the people of Comstock, who allowed the quilters to use the
massive meeting room and kitchen in their Community Center, the quilters
enjoyed sharing their art and learning a lot of new techniques from each other
and from Kay Sonnenberg of Montana. Kay, who has organized numerous retreats,
always does a great job, along with her husband, Ron, the retreat cook. She
provides hands-on lessons, quilt-making challenges, and motivation. One of her
greatest talents is to create an atmosphere where quilters can relax and
totally immerse themselves into their craft. This year one of the projects that
Kay demonstrated was how to make a 50-yard quilt, or the Jelly Roll Quilt that
took only a few hours to complete. Curious observers could spy quilters walking
outside the building to organize and untangle their 50 yards of sewn-together
strips. As the days progressed, a spectacular array of quilt tops in dazzling
colors emerged and decorated the massive walls of the community center. Other projects included wall hangings, scrap
quilts, baby blankets and burpers, and new sewing and piecing techniques. No
one leaves these retreats without learning a lot, and not just about quilting.
Discussions range from everything imaginable, and if you keep your ears open,
there’s a lot of valuable information about health, raising grandchildren,
coping with difficult issues, just to name a few friends. Plans are already
being made for next year’s retreat in January.

Article from the Del Rio News Herald April 11, 2010

Article from the Palestine Herald-Press April 3, 2009

Article from Southwest Texas LIVE! January 4, 2009

NEW BEGINNINGS: Treasured shirts preserve family’s memories

January 4, 2009 By Bill Sontag Feature WriterBarbara and Gordon Downing share a carefree moment of companionship in Las Vegas, Nev., the summer before he died on a business trip in Mexico. (Contributed photo/Barbara Downing)

Barbara Downing eases into 2009, following the third year of the loss of her beloved husband, Gordon, with renewed comfort created by a Del Rio quilter.

Hundreds of cherished quilts have come off the long-arm stitcher in Sara Castle’s San Pedro Canyon studio overlooking Lake Amistad, but few with more uniqueness and significance than the six she recently completed for Barbara Downing.

Gordon Downing died in December 2005 at the age of 55, so Christmas cheer has been shorted for Barbara and the four children she shared with her husband. The couple married 21 years ago, and Barbara remembers their 17 years together as too short, but richly lived, all of it in the south central Texas border town of Eagle Pass. “He always would say, ‘There are only two seasons in Eagle Pass: summer and hell.’”

Gordon was a passionate individualist. “It didn’t matter if it was 20 degrees outside, he’d always be wearing Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirts. In fact that’s what we buried him in,” said Barbara, laughing, Dec. 1, 2008. Chiding anyone who clucked about his unapologetic lifestyle, Gordon prophesied, “You’re going to miss me when I’m gone.” Indeed.

Downing grew up spending a great deal of time with his maternal grandparents, Harvey and Sabina Pollay, on the La Encantada Ranch in Mexico. Prior to work on La Encantada, Harvery Pollay was Eagle Pass chief of police. When not visiting La Encantada, Downing and his sister, Barbara Downing - now, Higdon, lived with their parents, Charles and Jeanne Downing. Charles came to Eagle Pass from Pittsburg, Penn., as an officer at Eagle Pass Army Air Field in World War II. Later he ran the Hotel Eagle. His cross-border upbringing gave Downing an invaluable gift. “He was completely fluent in Spanish and English. He knew the Spanish language well, and was eloquent in both languages,” Barbara said.

Family aside, Downing’s pleasures were manifest in firearms, music, civic service, and trade and barter in Mexican towns and hinterlands. “He was an avid guitar player and had a gorgeous voice. Gordon was in a band with ‘Bullet’ Beard, the Border Bandits, and they played a couple of times at TB’s,” Barbara said, referring to the stage at TB’s Bar&Grill, Del Rio, co-owned by Beard and Tod Townsend.

On Saturday (Jan. 2), the same day that Townsend and Beard told LIVE! of their plans to close TB’s Bar and Grill, Beard commented on his old friend and on-stage Bandit cohort: “Well, we grew up together and were great friends all our lives, sharing a lot of things together. Early on, he bought a convenience store from my dad, and I worked there with him awhile, and then we managed a couple of ranches together. And then, of course, there were a lot of gigs with the Bandits around town.”

After earning a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of Texas, Downing bought the Beards’ Double Eagle convenience store in Eagle Pass, later selling cars with part ownership in Regency Chevrolet, Uvalde, and finally back to Eagle Pass at the Winburn-Zama General Motors dealership, later dubbed Armadillo Motor Company.

In 1997, when he retired from auto sales, Barbara resumed a career with the Eagle Pass Independent School District, first as science coordinator, then secondary education curriculum director, through executive director, and finally assistant superintendent. All the while, Gordon “started doing what he loved best, being a trader,” said Barbara.

“He was big into guns, specializing in collections of Colt and Winchester, pistols, rifles, and all of them antiques. He went into Mexico every three weeks or so, took a trailer and an old beat up Suburban, and he’d bring back antique doors, beer trays, religious memorabilia, table tops, and old windows,” Downing said. “And that’s how he died. He was on a trip down there and had a massive heart attack while he was doing what he loved.”

Downing offered an anecdote about her husband’s widespread appeal to friends and business associates. “A lot of what he brought back, he sold on eBay and he had a lot of eBay friends and people who bought from him. The day that he died they sent out a mass message, and sent the word around to everybody on eBay,” Downing said. “He had a 100 percent [reliability] rating on eBay, not one negative rating from any customer.”

“When Gordon died, luckily he had his best friend with him, so – because of that and because they had so many good connections in Mexico – we really didn’t have a problem getting his body home.” Downing’s “best friend” was Bruce Scheiber, a gun trader, now living in Castroville, and he and Downing met at a firearms show, Downing explained.

Downing recalls the universal demeanor her husband showed to everyone, including his service as a lay leader in the Methodist Church, member of a Masonic Lodge, and former chairman of the board for the Eagle Pass Housing Authority. “He was such a people pleaser, and it didn’t matter how poor or how rich you were – he got along with everyone.”

Barbara Downing now lives in Fort Worth, serving as assistant superintendent of Eagle Mountain-Saginaw Independent School District. Four of Castle’s six quilts are gifts to each of the Downings’ children, one kept by Barbara and one held “in reserve.” Their daughter, Sabina, was 15 at the time of Downing’s death, and three children by previous marriages include Marlowe Downing, Charlie Downing, and Clint Chapman.

With typical modesty, Castle commented on her work: “There's not much to tell on my part. Barbara gave me 32 of Gordon’s Hawaiian shirts, and I made six quilts out of them using the same number of blocks in each quilt, and incorporating pieces of each of the 32 shirts in every quilt.” Castle estimates that she worked about 20 hours on every quilt, each containing 111 blocks or squares, resulting in finished 60-inch by 75-inch quilts for the Downing family.

Castle, who called Eagle Pass “home” for 25 years, concurs with Barbara’s assessment of the man memorialized this way. “He was the neatest guy, just an incredible person. You missed out if you didn’t know him, and anybody who did will tell you that,” Downing said.